12 Symptoms Of Organisational Sickness And Its Remedies.
Organizational Diagnosis deals with the health of the organization. It looks for danger signs as below:
Danger Signals.
(1) For an economist, the most crippling symptom for any company exists when the expense of running the company eats into the profit.
(2) When the Company or a Business Unit is losing money from an operating profit standpoint.
(3) When the Company has a Profit Sharing Incentive Scheme for Business Heads which does not account for Business Development is so concerned with maintaining the bottom line that it is thinking of nothing but short-term actual costs.
: (4)When quality level managers start leaving the Company with rapidity. It is well known that rats are the first to leave a sinking ship and when senior and top class managers start handing in their papers, trouble is surely afoot.
(5)When the market share has steadily depleted over a period of anything between 12 months to 36 months.
(6) The above five symptoms will invariably lead to this sixth one. When the sense of belonging is depleted and individual, as well as organizational pride, is greatly diminished, idea generation ceases and information flow is impaired. Morale is a great achiever and for this participative management is called for.
(7) The standards of quality are run down and manufacturing equipment is repaired only after it has broken down. Periodic maintenance and planned shutdowns are not known to occur and equipment is purchased only after the project has been bagged.
(8) This symptom is a spin-off from the former one. When systems and procedures do not exist so that quality is inbuilt into the process but rather inspected at the end of the value chain and the rejection levels are high. This will mean two things at once: (a) the absence of systems points to the lack of managerial capability and foresight. (b) The rise of rejection rates points to wasted resources and revenues.
(9) When Business Heads are evaluated on contribution, gross profit delivery, revenue goals and not held accountable for cash flow delivery. Hence project reprioritizing, changing in stock and inventory levels, modification of processes and learning to practice value engineering are sidestepped.
(10) When on-hand levels of inventory do not adequately reflect the mix of the product line at retail level.
(11) When a product is no longer a brand of choice but may still be a part of the purchaser's basket of demand, its usage as well as its market appeal would have been sharply reduced.
(12) When it is seen consistently that decisions are being made autocratically and the managers are asked to implement them democratically.
Remedies:
(A) Changing the corporate mindset through sensitivity training and culture building.
(B) Giving Business heads some hard lessons on developmental growth. making sure that long run aims are not jeopardized for short-run gains. Instilling Total Quality Management as a way of corporate behaviour.
(C) Building teams that consist of divergent skills but convergent aims. One very good way of using HR for bringing about each of these four strategic interventions is through one-day senior level executive development programs which can be run within the Company using available expert faculty with relative ease. For this one should look for senior academics with a proven track record in research as well as industry. Mere management trainers will just not do nor will those without adequate action research fit the bill. The first choice is the man from within. Only if internal faculty is not available then professional help should be sought and preferably from specialists who have an academic and analytical bent of mind. Targets must be set and the impact of intervention monitored against them. And that is the task of the HRM expert within the company to ensure. An ideal situation, of course, would be if the internal expert would work with the external expert to jointly facilitate organizational change preceded by a proper diagnosis. That is the absolute bottom line of this argument.
(D) If you are thinking of employing external HR consultant make sure he is not working
as a placement agent in which case attrition levels of your organizations will rise or he may run independent programs which he will promote and develop at the organizations' cost, in which case internal programs will fail. In both cases, the HR facilitator will have to take the blame
.
There is no means to measure the success or failure of these HR interventions in which case critics will find it to be an easy target to shoot down. Therefore the benefits must be ascertained, calculated and the benefits communicated widely across the organization through formal information networks like the Newsletter or Special Circulars.
Today we are living in a boundary-less universe where markets have been internationalized and the corporation has to either thrive on the cutting edge of competition or go under. Hence it needs to develop on its core competencies and also keep abreast of the environmental changes both nationally and globally. HRM is no longer seen by progressive companies as window dressing or a fancy buzzword to be mouthed as convenience may demand. The CEO increasingly looks upon the HRM expert to provide that much-desired change to retain the competitive edge. He is then forced to deliver or perish.
If the HR facilitator has to add value to the organization he serves, the client he services, his own profession and his self-respect, he has no option but to take Organizational Diagnosis very seriously. For this, he must develop skills and if need be go back to the basics. Therein alone lies his occupational salvation.
........................
Danger Signals.
(1) For an economist, the most crippling symptom for any company exists when the expense of running the company eats into the profit.
(3) When the Company has a Profit Sharing Incentive Scheme for Business Heads which does not account for Business Development is so concerned with maintaining the bottom line that it is thinking of nothing but short-term actual costs.
: (4)When quality level managers start leaving the Company with rapidity. It is well known that rats are the first to leave a sinking ship and when senior and top class managers start handing in their papers, trouble is surely afoot.
(5)When the market share has steadily depleted over a period of anything between 12 months to 36 months.
(6) The above five symptoms will invariably lead to this sixth one. When the sense of belonging is depleted and individual, as well as organizational pride, is greatly diminished, idea generation ceases and information flow is impaired. Morale is a great achiever and for this participative management is called for.
(7) The standards of quality are run down and manufacturing equipment is repaired only after it has broken down. Periodic maintenance and planned shutdowns are not known to occur and equipment is purchased only after the project has been bagged.
(8) This symptom is a spin-off from the former one. When systems and procedures do not exist so that quality is inbuilt into the process but rather inspected at the end of the value chain and the rejection levels are high. This will mean two things at once: (a) the absence of systems points to the lack of managerial capability and foresight. (b) The rise of rejection rates points to wasted resources and revenues.
(9) When Business Heads are evaluated on contribution, gross profit delivery, revenue goals and not held accountable for cash flow delivery. Hence project reprioritizing, changing in stock and inventory levels, modification of processes and learning to practice value engineering are sidestepped.
(10) When on-hand levels of inventory do not adequately reflect the mix of the product line at retail level.
(11) When a product is no longer a brand of choice but may still be a part of the purchaser's basket of demand, its usage as well as its market appeal would have been sharply reduced.
(12) When it is seen consistently that decisions are being made autocratically and the managers are asked to implement them democratically.
Remedies:
(A) Changing the corporate mindset through sensitivity training and culture building.
(B) Giving Business heads some hard lessons on developmental growth. making sure that long run aims are not jeopardized for short-run gains. Instilling Total Quality Management as a way of corporate behaviour.
(C) Building teams that consist of divergent skills but convergent aims. One very good way of using HR for bringing about each of these four strategic interventions is through one-day senior level executive development programs which can be run within the Company using available expert faculty with relative ease. For this one should look for senior academics with a proven track record in research as well as industry. Mere management trainers will just not do nor will those without adequate action research fit the bill. The first choice is the man from within. Only if internal faculty is not available then professional help should be sought and preferably from specialists who have an academic and analytical bent of mind. Targets must be set and the impact of intervention monitored against them. And that is the task of the HRM expert within the company to ensure. An ideal situation, of course, would be if the internal expert would work with the external expert to jointly facilitate organizational change preceded by a proper diagnosis. That is the absolute bottom line of this argument.
(D) If you are thinking of employing external HR consultant make sure he is not working
as a placement agent in which case attrition levels of your organizations will rise or he may run independent programs which he will promote and develop at the organizations' cost, in which case internal programs will fail. In both cases, the HR facilitator will have to take the blame
.
There is no means to measure the success or failure of these HR interventions in which case critics will find it to be an easy target to shoot down. Therefore the benefits must be ascertained, calculated and the benefits communicated widely across the organization through formal information networks like the Newsletter or Special Circulars.
Today we are living in a boundary-less universe where markets have been internationalized and the corporation has to either thrive on the cutting edge of competition or go under. Hence it needs to develop on its core competencies and also keep abreast of the environmental changes both nationally and globally. HRM is no longer seen by progressive companies as window dressing or a fancy buzzword to be mouthed as convenience may demand. The CEO increasingly looks upon the HRM expert to provide that much-desired change to retain the competitive edge. He is then forced to deliver or perish.
If the HR facilitator has to add value to the organization he serves, the client he services, his own profession and his self-respect, he has no option but to take Organizational Diagnosis very seriously. For this, he must develop skills and if need be go back to the basics. Therein alone lies his occupational salvation.
........................
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